Territorial Performance Monitoring (ESPON TPM project)

1. Territorial Performance Monitoring (ESPON TPM project) • Loris Servillo • ASRO – KU Leuven • 14/06/2012

2. Outline • General approach & Aim • Structure: quantitative & qualitative analysis • Mind map • Road map • General (methodological) considerations

3. Stakeholders • ESPON priority 2 • Five regions: • Flanders (lead stakeholder) • North Rhine-Westphalia • Navarre • Catalunia • Greatest Dublin Area

4. Project team • Lead Partner: IGEAT - Institut de Gestion de l'Environnement et d'Aménagement du Territoire - ULB • Research partner for each region: • Catalunia: Institut d'Estudis Territorial • Navarra: Navarra de Suelo Residencial • Greater Dublin Region: National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis – University Maynooth • Nordrhein-Westfalen: Institut für Landes- und Stadtentwicklungsforschung • Flanders: Planning & Development Research group, ASRO – KULeuven (+ coordination of qualitative analysis)

5. ESPON TPM project • The ESPON Territorial Performance Monitoring (TPM) project addressed two main lines of work: • a general assessment and development of tools for regional monitoring of challenges defined at other scales • the practical application of the tools and ideas for monitoring the five stakeholder regions involved in the project

6. ESPON TPM project • The aim of this project • (not to provide some form of “Dummy's guide to monitoring”) • a reflection on the issue of translating European challenges into regional realities • a mean to assess the current monitoring practices in regions • an exchange of best practices between stakeholder regions based on their monitoring experience • a laboratory to elaborate and test different techniques and tools for monitoring • A particular issue brought forward by the stakeholders was the integration of qualitative information into a fields generally dominated by quantitative measurement.

7. Challenges • Perception and levers identified in stakeholder regions • Demography • manage impacts of external immigration and ageing • Climate change • technically managing impacts of climate change • New energy paradigm • objectives determined at European level and on policies implemented at national level • Globalisation • most regions quite autonomous to include relevant policies

8. Methods Quantitative Generalisation/coverage Major differences Statisticalrelationships generalisableresults Limited set of questions Simplification of reality hard, objective, numeric data Objectivity Statistically sound methods Objective data sets allow generalisations Qualitative Exploration/depth Restict data collection more in-depthexamination lessgeneralisable (basedon a smaller group of involvedpersons) Complexity informalapproaches to capturedifferences - holistic approach Interpretation Interpretationprocesses Risk of being “just a bit more than organised common sense”

9. Combined methodology • Quantitative measures Simple benchmarking with or without comparison with the EU (ESPON 5-level approach) + interpretation, contextualization, ... • Qualitative assessment Based on expertise, surveys, delphi, focus groups ... Possibly elaboration of pseudo-quantitative indicators

10. Mind Map Global challenges Demography Globalisation Energy • Climate change

11. General structure of the project

12. Qualitative analysis: appraisal questions • Awareness of the challenge (per challenge) • Explicitly/implicitly addressed • Discourses, forcasting capacity • Planning context and resilience of the Planning System • Strategic capacity (vision and implementation) • Coordination, cooperation & participation • Monitoring capacity • Effectiveness of policy approach(es) • Policy bundles • Encompassing strategy? Whose competences? (policy level) • Coordination capacities • Threats – Opportunities

13. Structure of the qualitative analysis • Desktop analysis done by the different project partners; • Two-step procedure of involvement of stakeholders: • questionnaire / semi-structured interviews; • feedback on first outcomes. Different techniques can be tested (focus group, or simple singular feedback from the stakeholders, ranking technique, etc) Researchers Stakeholders Analysis of documents Questionnaire and / or semi-structured interviews Identification of crucial and contradicting aspects Second round of stakeholders’ involvement Final Reports (Set of ranked items) quantitative analysis

14. From the mind map to a tailor-made set of indicatorsDiscussion with each stakeholderIdentification of specific indicatorsConfrontation about the regional perception of the challenges Toward tailor-made tools

15. EU-wide quantitative benchmarking HyperAtlas

16. EU-wide quantitative benchmarking: TPM Tools

17. Indicators • indicators reflecting a situation and its evolution, but on which the territorial level considered – here mostly the regions – has no influence • indicators reflecting supra-regional constraints for which the regions may have to implement policies established on a larger scale, sometimes even at the expense of their own short-term interests • another version of the previous type consists in indicators reflecting constraints and policies present on supra-regional scales, for which a measurement on the regional scale is not necessarily relevant, but which can reflect the pursuit of other objectives • indicators reflecting regional situations on which regional authorities can actually have some influence through their own policies. • indicators that do not reflect regional realities, but rather the implementation of policies

18. Outcome and general recommendations

19. Regional monitoring tools • Regions that have adopted the TPM indicators • Regions that have embedded the TPM experience in their own monitoring activity/activities and adapted to the regional characteristics/needs • Regions that have implemented the monitoring activities at lower level (differences within the regions)

20. Methodological recommendations Ideal (technocratic) model

21. Methodological recommendations • Conditions of success of monitoring in regional policy making: • integration of monitoring system into clear/explicit vision • clearly defined procedures on how to react to findings of the monitoring system • sufficient resources for continuous update and maintenance • shared ownership • a continuous “surveillance” of European policy discussions and documents • relative political “neutrality” of monitoring system • long-term commitment to the monitoring process • permanent fora of contact with relevant experts

22. Methodological recommendations • What can ESPON do to support monitoring efforts in regions ? • Thematic research, including elaboration of innovative indicators and typologies • Continuous development of tools such as the ESPON Database and the ESPON HyperAtlas • Sustained maintenance of datasets, tailored to specific challenges, and specific European objectives

23. Thank you loris.servillo@asro.kuleuven.be